Staff Reporter :
Some big fishes in association with the organised international forgery members have looted crores of taka from the country’s banks and financial institutions by colonising ATM cards.
“Based on investigation and information extracted from the arrested four persons, including a Polish citizen, we found some big fishes and powerful persons who are behind the ATM cards fraud,” Monirul Islam, Chief of the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) said.
He said this while talking to the journalists over the primary investigation into the ATM card scam at DMP media centre in city on Thursday.
“We have also obtained some sensational and vital information of the arrested persons about how and in what way these organised gangs used to withdraw money from the bank and the financial institutions. We will go for massive hunt for the big fishes,” he said. Monirul Islam said apart from foreign and local bank officials, big fishes like owners of travel agencies, residential hotels and currency exchange services are also involved with ATM card scam.
He said these organised thugs not only using ATM cards but also using point-of-sale (PoS) machines and debit and credit cards looted crores of taka from different banks and financial institution.
PoS, a computerised replacement for a cash register can include the ability to record and track customer orders, process credit and debit cards, connect to other systems in a network, and manage inventory.
“We have already gone through the bank statements of the powerful businessmen who were found involved in ATM card scam. We are now examining the bank statements,” the police official said.
Replying to a query, Monirul Islam said it is not possible for an official of a bank to withdraw money with ATM card forgery if he did not get green signal from authority of the financial institution.
Plainclothes police arrested four persons, including a Polish citizen, from city’s Gulshan area in city on Sunday for their suspected involvement with the recent ATM card scam.
The arrestees are: Polish citizen Piotr Szczepan Mazurek and three officials of City Bank Maksed Al alias Maksud, Rezaul Karim alias Shaheen, and Refaz Ahmed alias Roni.
DB police arrested the four along with a passport, an identity card given by the German government confirming Piotr’s German citizenship. They are now under remand.
Piotr also confessed that an international gang was involved in the debit card forgery and the gang is active in Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, and Poland in East Europe.
The gang looted huge amount of money from the ATM booths of UCBL (United Commercial Bank Limited), City Bank, and Eastern Bank on January 7 and 8.
